


Trouble Is Your Middle Name

by alitbitmoody



Category: Hotel Artemis (2018)
Genre: Acapulco is married to a contract killer from another country, Alternate Universe - Criminals, Anal Sex, Battle Couple, Bisexual Male Character, Bondage, Disabled Character, Dysfunctional Relationships, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Married Couple, Mentions of self-destructive behavior, Oral Sex, Original Character(s), Post-Canon Fix-It, Versailles is played by Burn Gorman, Xenophobia, because that rage boner in the film came from somewhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-05 01:58:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15159926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alitbitmoody/pseuds/alitbitmoody
Summary: Five days after stabbing his husband in the back, Versailles watched the implosion of Los Angeles from a bar halfway across the world.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Hooverphonic’s gorgeous “Mad About You.” Versailles’ fingernails are inspired by [pixiepunch's](http://pixiepunch.tumblr.com) [fantastic](http://pixiepunch.tumblr.com/post/174896483292/more-berlin-and-acapulco-aka-hermann-and-newt) [artwork](http://pixiepunch.tumblr.com/post/174804772167/after-watching-hotel-artemis-i-wanted-to-draw).

**_Los Angeles, 2018._ **

_The West Hollywood establishment seemed like an odd meeting place for this type of exchange. Versailles saw a place that was bohemian and glitzy, with dusty chandeliers and outdated dance music pulsing in the lounge area. The peeling image of Ada Lovelace winked at him from the back wall. The bartender stared balefully at him when he hooked his cane against the brass rail before taking his seat. He would have quoted the ADA at her if his knee hadn’t been throbbing from the circling around to the outside pavilion seating to avoid the CCTV._

_Not his first pick. But he had only been in the city for two days and the haste in which he’d been forced to reach out to the armorer warranted a certain adaptability. An address scribbled on a coffee sleeve and ‘I’m sending someone over’ was an acceptable answer to a call for a job whose two-week window had been abruptly expedited to three days._

_He met the bartender’s gaze as he popped a diazepam (half, to remain alert) and ordered a seltzer water._

_“Make that two, sweetheart. Vodka in mine.” The voice was smirking and rough, prompting Versailles to look up as the man slid into onto the stool next to his._

_He was a short thing, wavy brown hair haphazardly pushed back from his forehead, shirt and jacket just slightly askew. A little too overdressed compared to the other patrons of the establishment. much like Versailles himself -- though his own jacket was new, fitted rather than loose, and he wore a steel collar pin instead of a rumpled pashmina._

_A developer, then. Not a dealer. One of the tech heads and grease monkeys who usually built the weapons rather than sold them. Uncertain times had forced several of these enterprising people into business for themselves — though they often lacked the experience of serious deal-making._

_“I take it you’re my contact,” Versailles intoned, reminding himself that he was pressed for time._  
  
_“It looks that way, doesn't it? Who does your nails?” he asked, gesturing to the long fingernails that tapped the bar top rhythmically._  
_  
_ _“ I do,” he replied, crisply. He had painted them just that morning. #33, Pacific Blue. “A mutual colleague of ours said I should get in touch with you.”_

_“I’ll have to thank him. May I?” he leaned in to take the taller man's hand, bringing it to his lips, beard bristling along the back of his hand. “Sit in close to me -- we’re in a blind spot but let’s just say the surveillance in this place isn’t entirely audio-visual.”_

_Versailles was stunned enough to allow the contact. Though the bedroom eyes just before the brush of lips was even more startling. He could appreciate a certain amount of refuge in audacity — his own presentation relied on it. The man was smaller than him, probably smaller than most of his clientele. Put gangsters emboldened by intimidation on the back foot and keep them there for the whole of the transaction. It was one way of staying alive for as long as possible, at least long enough to adequately secure a deal._  
  
_Even taking all things into account, the pretense for closer proximity seemed dubious at best. He found himself moving his chair in closer anyway._

_“Much better,” his contact smirked. “With the name our boy gave me, I thought you’d be French.”_

_“I am French, technically,” he replied in his best East London accent. “I thought you’d be taller.”_

_“I was supposed to be,” he replied, unfazed. “Didn’t quite break 5’7” and my boyhood ambitions were crushed.”_

_“Well, you’re certainly in the right city for a few broken dreams.” Versailles reached between their bodies, sliding glittering fingers along the edge of the other man's jacket to tug him even further into his personal space. “Do_ you _have a name by chance?”_

_“I’ve got a few of ‘em,” he said, a seam of darkness behind the sparkling eyes. “If you want to know ‘em, shut your mouth about my city. Do I come in to your living room and bash the decor?”_

_Versailles shrugged. “Right, then. A less patriotic topic: I need something small that will pass through a metal director, won’t be detected in a pat down, easily discarded.”_

_This at least, seemed to please his unnamed guest._

_“Detail-oriented -- I appreciate it, doll. More than you know,” he said, his eyes managing to shift to still another mossy shade of green under the bar's shoddy lighting. “How soon do you need it?”_

_“The contract is in less than a week. Same city.”_

_“Short notice.”_  
  
_“I’ve got a moving target.” Keeping a bead on his mark’s schedule had only gotten more difficult as the upset over the coming elections made the money men across the pond nervous._

_“Location?”_

_“Concert Hall,” he replied, keeping the details as vague as possible. More than one contract had been poached via loose communications. There was also the chance of someone in the periphery getting nicked before the job was even done. Worse still, if the target was high profile, any number of people might want them dead_ and _be ready to deflect blame on to the contract killer that just happened to be in the area._

_Quite a few people wanted this particular target dead._

_“Large venue, lots of people, we’ll have to account for quite a few variables," the bearded man said. “Have you got a secondary location?””_

_“Hotel is the projected secondary point of contact. Not far from here.”_

_“How far away do you need to be from the target for the first location?”_

_Location elements, variables. Not just a straightforward gun then. Something customized as opposed to off the peg. Versailles felt himself warm to the thought. He leaned in closer, ignoring the citrusy smell of pomade, salty sweat, the burnt electrons that accompanied work with a soldering iron._

_“About this far.”_

_The developer’s eyes were sparkling and oddly still; calculating._

_“Small margin of error. How much of a mess are you willing to make?”_

_“A reasonable amount.”_

_He smirked, thumb brushing over the back of Versailles’ knuckles._

_“Give me twelve hours. I’ll have something special for you.”_

\--

**Melbourne, 2028.**

The riots raged on and the schadenfreude of the international news media had long since transitioned to tragedy and soliloquy -- America the Beautiful turned so very ugly, a gorgeous monstrosity devouring its own mutated offspring.

Versailles watched it all on the screen above the bar in a pub on Victoria Street, nursing his whiskey and soda slowly. The inside of the pub, ironically named Prudence, was awash with red neon, apart from the square of light emanating from the plasma screen. The crowd from the winter night market next door flooded in and out, bringing whispered conversation, drunken singing, the smell of fried food and clove cigarettes. He heard and felt and sensed it all as though he were at the end of a long wind tunnel, eyes glued to the carnage in the city he had left behind five days earlier.

What had started out as a personal vacation had quickly turned to relocating his base of operations -- reaching out to contacts that were still alive or had made their own escapes. Then, as the city’s reported death toll climbed into the thousands, it became a period of mourning.

He eyed the wide silver band on his trigger finger as he took another drink; nails filed down and painted gunmetal gray to match.

They had argued before. They had parted before. The escalation to violence was new -- even if it was well below what either one of them was capable of. Their spats had a certain routine -- slammed doors and stolen credit cards, the occasional priceless possession or favorite firearm pocketed on the way out, one of them retreating to a safe house and the other inevitably following after a short time had passed.

Versailles had been the one to drive the knife into Manfred's shoulder blade and run to a hotel suite on another continent in another hemisphere, where he knew his jingoistic partner was unlikely to follow him. He recognized the implied permanence in his own actions, the finality in leaving his beloved bleeding out in a city that was on the verge of succumbing to its own fatal injuries.

And yet.

The stories were consistent: Clear Water had fallen and Los Angeles along with it when the riot police were neutralized by the city’s residents. The Wolf King and his heir apparent were both dead along with their entire security detail. All of the accounts he’d been able to connect with confirmed that Los Angeles’ most untouchable had walked into the Hotel Artemis and never walked out.

It wasn’t a difficult conclusion to draw that everyone else inside the city’s most secure, most infamous dark room had been similarly unmade.

Versailles had kept his and Manfred’s memberships at the Artemis current for more than seven years -- after a target had used their remaining seconds of life to trigger a remote detonator to ignite a nearby septic system, leaving him with third-degree burns all over the right side of his body. His wounds had healed in three days and he had made good deal of use from the access over the years, while his husband had few reasons to take advantage of the perks offered by the Nurse and her staff.

Until five days ago.

He finished his whiskey, looking away from the screen.  
  
\--

_The next meeting place turned out to be on the top  floor of an old textile plant -- converted loft space that had been further converted into a solarium._

_“Impressed?” Stone had asked, holding the door for him as he entered._

_“Relieved you chose a place with an elevator,” he replied._

_Versailles sat on a chaise, watching as the setting sun cast half the room with an orange glow, nearly concealed by a thicket of staggered flower beds and planters. He doubted this was the weapons designer’s actual flat, even with the rack of components along the back wall and the soldering station and coffee rings littering the glass coffee table. No one who took that little care in keeping his own buttons fastened could possibly put forth the effort of caring for this many plants, all of which were green and healthy-looking._

_The “something special” turned out to be a glass vial with a barbed needle the size and length of a straight pin; housed in a plastic case that resembled a seam ripper._

_“Deceptively simple,” he remarked, eyeing the small piece merchandise laid out on the table, reaching for it after the shorter man nodded his permission._

_“That’s for the primary location, up close and personal. Leaves a small entry point — they’ll need to look for it to know it’s there. Intramuscular puncture is best, get something fleshy close to the arterial blood supply. Palm of the hand or inside of the wrist will do it. High dose of digitoxin hits the bloodstream, goodnight Vienna. If you don’t want to go the poison route, the mechanism works with with an empty load as well -- an air embolism will be a little faster, so you may want to factor that in when planning an escape route.”_

_Versailles nodded, watching Stone’s eyes as he continued his pitch. He had eschewed the jacket today and his shirt sleeves were rolled up, tattoos slinking out across both forearms in haunting spectres -- he spotted a cluster of lines that resembled a circuit board, slightly blurred with their owner’s constant motion._

_“Now, that still puts the onus on you to make contact in a crowded room. So, for the secondary location, I went a little more traditional.” He popped open a small case on the table, revealing a small caliber firearm -- slim, small, easy to conceal but for the long, slim barrel._

_“.22?”_

_“Modeled after the Ruger Mark III, though I’ve modified it slightly. The chamber is too small to account for large ammo cartridges so you’ll need to make those shots count. Upper barrel system is anodized aluminum -- you can break it down and drop it in the recycling bin once you’re done with it. I’ve eschewed the steel for the lower barrel so you may have to do that anyway. Can’t reuse it, makes it harder to trace."_

_“No silencer?”_

_“Impacts the velocity, don’t want to slow your shot when you’ve got so few chambered,” he raised an eyebrow. “Try it out. Give it a feel.”_

_Versailles eyed him coolly._

_“I should have guessed you’d be a fetishist,” he said, nonetheless placing the open case on his lap for a closer look._

_“Because it’s such a crime to love what you do?” he asked, laying his hand on Versailles’ wrist and pointedly gazing at the dark blue polish. “I just guessed you might gauge things by feel, given these.”_

_Rather than pull away, Versailles turned his hand palm up in invitation, only mildly surprised when Stone followed, interlacing their fingers. He was acutely aware that their bodies were positioned as if in a dance, even seated._

_“Do you hold hands with all of your potential clients?” His tone and demeanor might have been viewed as disdainful by anyone watching from a distance. Stone himself, seated as close as he was, and with a gaze that had been calibrated to watch for intricacies and pick out any flaw, just grinned._

_“Only the cute ones.”_

_Flaw spotted. Versailles ran his thumb along the back of a freckled wrist._

_“These are for aesthetic and deflection.” His own means of keeping clients, dealers, and other various specialists permanently off-kilter. Anyone who looked at his leg and doubted his ability to fulfill a contract would see his glittery polish and walk away with another, itchier, predicament lingering on their mind. The preference had grown over the years -- as potential witnesses too flinched away from his appearance and… other potential queries drew in closer._

_“They suit you. It_ all _kind of suits you, really,” Stone said, eyeing Versailles’ full ensemble he’d turned up in -- a light blue shirt today, top button left loose, collar pin in place. “And it definitely gives weight to your dossier.”_

_“I don’t recall providing you with one.”_

_“Our ‘mutual colleague’ filled me in."_

_“Did he?”_

_Stone nodded. “He said I would be well-advised not to stick you with uninspired materials. He also said that you fulfilled one contract by crushing the target’s windpipe with your bare hands. Is that true?”_

_Versailles reached over, resting his thumb under the shorter man’s carotid artery. Held the shorter man’s throat loosely, not quite squeezing._

_“What do you think?”_

_“I think flirting_ is _back on then,” he smiled, squeezed the hand he still held “I wasn’t sure before.”_

_“It passes the time,” Versailles allowed himself a small smirk, dropping his hand. “I appreciate your attention to detail as well.”_

_“Appreciation -- be careful, a little of that goes a long way with me,” he said, oddly serious. “Note the shape of the handle.”_

_He met his gaze evenly, glancing down at the gun in the case on his lap. The grip was slim and curved, indentations for individual finger mimicking..._

_“You’re assuming my cane is hollow.”_

_“Given what you do, I’m speculating that you’ve got at least one that’s partially hollow -- to support your leg and to act as a spare compartment. And if you don’t, you should probably have at least one,” he smiled. “Aesthetic and deflection.”_

_Hearing his own words spoken back to him was strange. But useful._

_“Have you got something for that?” If nothing else, there was room for them in his domestic travels, relieved of the invasiveness of a body scanner._

_“I could whip something up for you,” he nodded. “Nothing quick enough for this job, but maybe the next one?”_

_Follow-up. Always important when building a stable clientele that could preserve and expand income flow. This Versailles at least recognized._

_“I generally prefer knives -- aesthetic. And they’re personal," he replied. "Plastic and carbon fiber to avoid x-rays and metal detectors.”_

_“Oh honey, now I_ know _you’re flirting with me.” he winked._

\--

The Ibis on Swanston Street had a modern, utilitarian motif. Once tailored to economically strangled Millennials whose mobility had stalled at fleabag hostels and flat-shares, the entire building was designed to look like it has arrived in an IKEA flat pack. Some assembly required. Inside, the upholstery, walls, and floors were a Mondrianesque study in black and white and crimson. Versailles watched his reflection, distorted in the chrome of the elevator doors as he traveled up to the top floor. He had managed the walk all right with his cane, but it had started to rain halfway through the journey, slowing his pace as he rounded the last block to the hotel.

The first burst of air from his suite was cold as turned the knob -- far below the eco setting he had set the digital thermostat to before he left. His reflexes kicked in quickly. Using his cane to swing the nudge the door the rest of the way open, he drew the carbon fiber blade from his jacket and hurled it in an arc inside the room; enough time to draw the single-shot rifle from his umbrella handle.

There was no answering parry from inside, no return fire, no projectiles. Versailles hit the lightswitch and stepped inside, gun drawn in front of him.

The intruder was seated, facing the door when he dove in, the throwing blade embedded on the chair, above a familiar head.

“Your weight distribution’s off. I keep telling him the counterbalance in the handle is supposed to compensate for that, but does he listen to me? Nooo,” Manfred slurred, rolling a bottle of nail polish between his fingers. “#626, huh?”  
  
“How did you--?”

“‘Found it on the nightstand,” he held the bottle up. “You only wear this when there’s been a tragedy, baby. What happened?”

Versailles lowered the rifle to his side, his head filled with white noise.

He had been wearing #38 the last time they’d seen each other -- nails still drying, a bloody aubergine made even bloodier as he hooked them into his husband’s face and dragged. The last time Manfred had seen him with both eyes.

“Los Angeles happened,” he finally answered, stepping fully into the room, gun still drawn. “Be careful. You don’t want to spill that in your Louis Vuitton bag.”

He shrugged. “Oh it’s seen much, _much_ worse lately.”

“I believe you.” He privately debated laying the umbrella aside for a long moment, finally laying both pieces on the sideboard and kicking the door shut behind him. “You left the country.”

In the ten years they had been together, his husband had only left the Americas with extreme reluctance. He had never accompanied Versailles when a contract took him abroad, not when he was gone for weeks and their sole contact was daily texts and Skype sex. His arms dealing was a mostly personal affair with most clients coming to him in Los Angeles, sometimes with Versailles acting as a kind of distant, unseen honor guard or merging their security forces to show a unified front to a client that might otherwise try to slip away from an arrangement.

“Wasn’t easy. Passport photo doesn’t match anymore — that gave me some trouble with the facial scan at international entry. And my peripheral vision’s officially fucked. I found that one out the hard way.”

He approached the chair, tipping his partner’s head back to examine the flattened keloid scars that encircled his eye, left pupil slit into two disproportionate oblong shapes. His handiwork. Artwork. Like a perfectly sharpened knife diving beneath flesh, or the pristine grace of an air embolism. He wanted to caress, settled instead for clinical tactility.

“It’s...almost charming. In its way.”

“Yeah, I’m one of a kind now. Thanks for that.”

“I didn’t do _this_ to you, though,” he said, pushing the hair back to peruse the healing wounds on the right side of his head. Deep punctures, implemented with what looked like mechanical precision. “Did you pick another fight to forget the one that we had?”

“You know me," he said, flatly.

“ _More_ than one then.”

“I _may_ have thrown myself face first at a human wood chipper on a whim, sure,” he said, bearing his wounded dignity like a blood-soaked jacket. “‘Hoping she would see sense and take care of my little ‘vertical and breathing’ problem for me.”  
  
Versailles swallowed as he examined the healing punctures more closely, aligned almost perfectly, same size, same rate of healing. His husband pressed on with his story.  
  
“When she wouldn’t, someone else did it for her. There may have been some cocaine involved -- pharmaceutical grade, no impurities. I saved myself the trouble of OD’ing, but I fucked my memory for the past couple of days. I’m pretty sure I broke the rules… and the 3D printer. Both of which got my membership at the Artemis revoked. Probably yours, too. All of Los Angeles has been more or less revoked so that doesn’t make much of a difference in the long run. Speaking of… what the _fuck_ are you doing traveling without protection, huh? Are you crazy or something?”

The kiss was sudden, fierce. Versailles realized halfway through that _he_ was the one who had initiated it -- fervor fueled by relief from the pit of dread he had carried in his stomach since that first news report; strings cut after five days of tension. Manfred, for his part, melted into it; head tilting back, a hand moving up to grip the back of his jacket. He was still holding on when their lips parted.

“I’m my own protection,” he rasped.

“Did you at least pack sunscreen?” he asked. Never mind that it was winter in this part of the world and they were both buttoned up to the throat.

“You left the country," Versailles said, unwrapping the Chanel scarf from around his neck. He fingered the topmost button on his husband's jacket, slipping it through the hole and moving on to the next one.

“Living without you wasn’t going so great," he replied, familiar hands moving to encircle Versailles’ narrow hips. Not seductive or entreaty; gripping for support. As though he might slip off the planet at any moment. "And dying without you clearly _didn’t work_. So...”

He moved to fully climb into the chair, sitting astride his husband’s lap as he struggled to remove his coat. He was grateful that the hotel staff had swapped the hard plasticine chair that came with the room for one of the plush leather ones.

“Fair warning, sweetheart,” he said, leaning forward as his own jacket was pushed off of his shoulders and tossed to the floor. “I’ve got a traumatic brain injury and my short-term memory’s got some _very literal_ holes in it... so I don’t really remember if I was sorry for what I did.”

“I don’t care.”

“I’m _very fucking sorry_ now,” he reiterated, voice abruptly thick, gravelly. “Good enough?”

"I thought you were dead." The slap stung his hand as green eyes widened, slit pupil and all. “You don’t get off that easily.”

“God, I fucking hope not,” he breathed, darting forward to kiss him again.

At his worst, his husband was full of self-loathing overlaid with Napoleonic boasting, mirroring a home that had turned on itself savagely. Yet he had said more than once that getting fucked by Versailles was like the mother country reclaiming him, reminding him that he was owned property, no matter how many times he ran away. Never mind that Versailles himself was Franco-Germanic and had only lived in London long enough to pick up the accent. Manfred didn’t care, and the whole of the metaphor was significant enough that he let it stand: his man wanted him, was beholden to him, and would crawl broken and bleeding out of a decimated city in a self-immolating nation to find him.

Good enough.

The scarf had dried blood on it as he braced his husband’s arms behind his back and tied his wrists together. The tension thrust the smaller man’s chest forward -- he plucked at his shirt buttons, running blunted nails along the revealed skin.

“You trimmed ‘em.” There was an echo of sorrow in his voice that made Versailles smile.

“Evidence of assault. They’ll grow back. In the meantime,” he drew the sharpest edge of his thumb nail across an exposed nipple, skated four reddened trails across his husband’s ribs and back up to tease the length of his bruised sternum.

“God... I fucking love your hands,” he gasped. “Fucking gorgeous and deadly… Don’t leave me again, baby. Dying without you was a bitch and a half.”

“We’ll die together next time,” he replied, his own breath growing shallow. As if it wasn’t a likely outcome. “Lean back.”

He planted his good knee between the prone man’s legs, pushing on the back of the chair until it reclined, bringing his husband’s body parallel with the floor. Versailles shimmied forward, watching Manfred’s gasping face.

“Open your mouth.”

“Fuck yes," he hissed, scrunching further down against the cushions. "God, baby. I’d put another hole in my head if you’d fuck me in it.”

Social inhibitions lowered -- one of the hallmarks of a TBI. Versailles smiled as he maneuvered calloused hands to grasp at his bare hips, securing his balance as he shoved his trousers and pants out of the way.

“I’ll settle for my favorite.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Versailles and Stone are reunited in Los Angeles in 2018 and Melbourne in 2028.

_It was a nearly perfect execution. Nearly perfect because, fittingly, the Los Angeles Philharmonic had started their Rossini performance late. Second and third-string performers needed to be called in to pinch-hit, as the regular performers refused to pick up their instruments at the pleasure of a theocratic despot. Versailles admired their principles, though it made coordinating the precise location and timing of the hit a mess._

_In the end, he got lucky when the man’s security team chose a side exit through the east lobby, hoping to avoid the throng of protesters milling at the venue’s front steps. He opted for the quick dispatch of an air embolism -- for the personal satisfaction and the subsequent confusion and pandemonium it would create in a crowded space where historical restoration had prevented the installation of cameras in the nearby corridors and stairwells._

_The hit had the dual pleasure of taking place after a truly impeccable concert -- the overture to “La gazza ladra” was still singing in his ears as he pretended to stumble, breaching the mark’s protective detail with his own body. He held tight to his cane as he regrouped, sliding his hand into the old man’s proffered one with a graceful ease._

_“Thank you, sir,” Versailles smiled, holding the shorter man’s gaze as the needle made contact then withdrew in the space of a few seconds. He didn’t need to look back as he walked away -- the chaos was audible, even under the triumphant rising notes in his head._

_The job would have been a clean affair overall but for the sudden addition of a second target — the man’s wife, who in reaction to her husband’s sudden cardiac arrest, began moving large amounts of cash from a political slush fund into a personal account._ _Grief in its truest expression._

_Versailles was already in his town car and pulling on to the highway when the call from the client pinged in his ear: they wanted her operation halted as quickly as possible. They wanted her to suffer as painfully as possible, and they wanted to see it happen._

_And so, Versailles was forced to act quickly: secondary weapon, new secondary location._

_Not being a criminal mastermind, the GPS on the wife’s phone was still on as she initiated several large wire transfers._   _With that data available, he was able to track her location and time to another luxury hotel room in Van Nuys. He popped his sensor in followed by two drops of Visine and negotiated the price up to 2 million, for pain and suffering, and the long vacation he would need to take following such a high profile job._

_It was closer and messier than the reasonable amount he would have liked, but he managed to secure a room in the same hotel with the help of a harried and sympathetic concierge (in an area marked ‘closed for renovation’, framed by large, almost romantic layers of plastic fluttering in the breeze from the air conditioning vents). He retreated to the room, discarding his jacket and going to work on his shirt cuffs when he heard a voice behind him._

_“Nice work.”_

_Stone was seated on the bed as he entered, hands up as Versailles flinched, instinctively retrieving the pistol from his cane and pointing it at the intruder._

_“Careful now," he smiled, slightly breathless. "This part of the place is closed off -- fire a shot and you’ll send a maid running up here.”_

_The cleaning staff were most likely as distracted as the front office staff were with the suited agents milling in the vestibule, awaiting instructions from distant authorities on another coast as Versailles had awaited word from his overseas contact. He wondered if Stone knew that, or if he'd come in some way apart from the front door and missed the commotion entirely._

_“Was there a problem with your fee?”_

_“Nah, your payment cleared just fine. I checked the balance before I left the house, just as agreed.”_

_Versailles held the gun steadily, moving further into the room, gait slightly unsteady from the lower center of gravity brought by bracing on a cane that was suddenly three inches shorter. “I don’t believe_ covert surveillance _was part of our arrangement.”_

 _Stone shrugged, hands still up. “Call it a private project -- for my eyes only.”_  
  
_“Why?”_  
_  
“I was… curious. ‘Wanted to check out your handiwork for myself. I have to say you didn’t disappoint me.”_

_Ever indulgent, the wife had sprung for the terrace room with the outdoor spa, sliding glass doors providing a perfect viewing screen for anyone that might be nearby with high powered binoculars. There was a faint sheen of sweat on Stone's forehead and the sides of his neck. As Versailles moved closer, he caught stray notes of asphalt, car exhaust, the freon from a rooftop HVAC unit. He eyed the dress shirt under Stone's open jacket, mother of pearl buttons and a dark tie pulled loose betraying the weapons designer's presence at both hits._

_“I am... unaccustomed to performing for an audience. At least this kind of audience,” he mused as he lowered the gun, re-sheathing the stock until the cane was one solid piece. "I assume you also wanted to make sure there weren’t any performance issues with your merchandise."_

_Stone smirked wolfishly, apparently unfazed by the tease or the lack of question in his tone. “You’re welcome to come over here and check for ‘performance issues’ if you’d like.”_

_“I’d prefer to wash up first,” he said, stripping his black leather gloves off. “_ _You can come and check me for any other weapons in the meantime. Unless all that flirting before was just business.”_

_“You say that like it was all just me,” he said, following half a step behind. He leaned in the doorway of the bathroom as Versailles busied himself at the sink._

_“I enjoyed the flirting.” He was still enjoying it, if he was honest. He engaged in a sort of slow striptease, undoing the last of his buttons and pushing the linen shirt to the floor. “I’ll confess I am a little surprised that you would pursue it this far.”_

_Stone shrugged, green eyes glittering as they took in his bare chest and arms. “We got good chemistry, you and me.”_

_“Hormones are_ basic _chemistry.”_

_“It’s more than that.”_

_Perhaps. Certainly, the pursuit itself was unlike anything he had encountered before. And the spark in the green eyes he saw now no longer looked like flirtation._

_“Appreciation,” he smiled. Devotion. Heavy enough to rattle him momentarily. "How did you get into the room?”_

_“Cloned the RFID lock. Made my own private skeleton key.”_

_In the twenty minutes it had taken Versailles between executing the hit and making his room arrangements with the concierge.The hyper-competence on display was… really quite distracting. He swallowed, splashing his face with water from the tap to disguise it._

_“Nicely done.” Versailles brought his hands up to work on his belt, undoing the buckle and pulling the leather through._

_"Here," Stone moved in until he was standing close, his hand moved up to touch Versailles' shoulder. "Lean on me when you do that."_

_"I'm not frail."_

_"I know, but you never did fire that second shot and it's still chambered."_

_Versailles smiled, hooking his cane on the edge of the laminate. "I'll have to take care of that later."_

_"In the morning," Stone said,_

_"It's nearly morning now," he said, shifting to lean against the shorter man, while he slid his belt free and went to work on his fly. "I do hope you re-worked the security footage while you were at it. And talked at a lower volume.”_

_“Honey, you can shut me up any time now,” Stone murmured close to his ear, fingers moving to his own shirt buttons. “I’ve kinda been waiting for you to do it all week.”_

_Versailles licked into his mouth, pressing the shorter man up against the bathroom door._

_He dragged them both down to the floor when his knee and hip started to bother him; dragged both of them up to the bed when the carpet began to abrade their skin. Stone’s hands were rough in all the right spots as he dragged them over his hips and thighs. He in turn, left deep scratch marks in the other man's back and shoulders as they rutted together._

_“How long have you got until your next gig?” he asked, curled under Versailles' arm at four in the morning, both of them still far from sleep._

_“I’m on something of a long holiday," he replied._

_“Feel like having some company?”_

\--

Manfred was using the warming plate on the coffee maker to make pancakes when Versailles finally woke up. A side of plum jam sat in a bowl next to it, stewed and heated in the glass carafe beforehand. Re-worked and re-purposed hardware -- his husband’s specialty. 

“Please tell me you’ve already used that thing to brew actual coffee,” he murmured into the pillow, eyes blinking against the sunlight streaming in from the window.

He pointed to the cup on the table, getting up to draw the curtain. Versailles reached for it, giving a proprietary sniff. Dark roast, hazelnut creamer. He risked a small sip; perfect temperature, just the right amount of sweetness.

“Your Sativex is next to it.”

“Thank you, my love.” He swallowed reaching for the spray prescribed to relieve his hip and knee pain. He waited for the peppermint-flavored spray to settle in, absorbed by his mucus membranes, before reaching for the coffee once more.

“Trusting.”

“You wouldn’t have come all this way just to poison me," he said, sitting up to swing his legs over the edge of the mattress.

"No, I wouldn't have,” he smirked, adding another pancake to the finished stack. “Australia, then. Is this for keeps or are we just passing through?"

"You're deferring to me?"

"Don’t get too excited -- my own judgment hasn’t done me too many favors lately," he said, moving to stand in front of him. "At least I speak the language here."

A beat elapsed while the caffeine and the sugar hit his synapses. He drew the time out, stroking newly painted fingers over the coterie of bruises on his husband’s chest and hips. Not just submission, something tired and familiar in search of a quick jolt of adrenaline: true forgiveness and relief. He probably should have recognized it.

"On trial,” he finally replied, wrapping an arm around the shorter man's waist. “We need a new home base.”

“America is out and the UK is still a no-fly zone.” 

"Correct," Versailles nodded. “Eurozone is probably best for now. While I take on more contracts, we're going to need to go where the jobs are for a time. Be a proper multinational couple."

Manfred nearly rolled his eyes. He could see the distaste lock up in his throat, wanting to escape. Versailles watched as he visibly stifled it, smiled.

"So, what you're saying is... I'm going to need to beef up on my French."

Versailles nodded. "And your German, and your Italian, your Mandarin. Unless you just want to stand next to me and look inviting."

"You're pushing my buttons here, baby," he sniffed, even as he grabbed for the wandering hand, interlacing their fingers.

"You'll live," Versailles replied, almost smiling.

Manfred did smile, broad and almost fond. "Yes I will. So will you. And you're going to need new toys and tricks to get around the firearms laws this side of the pond."

“I’ve got lots of toys,” he murmured, hooking his fingers into the waistband of his husband’s trousers, pulling him forward to kneel between his legs on the bed.

“Yeah,” he smiled, bisected stare just dazed enough to be honest, “you sure fucking do.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prudence and the Ibis are real locations in Melbourne, close to the Queen Victoria Market. The Abbey, the Santee Building, and Airtel Plaza from the flashback are real locations in Los Angeles (in West Hollywood, Downtown, and Van Nuys respectively), though all of them are slightly skewed here through the dirty lens of Hotel Artemis (Ex: the real mural in the former is of Elizabeth Taylor, not Ada Lovelace). The weapons themselves (and Acapulco's re-working the hotel room's key-card lock) are an outlandish fiction as well, for the purposes of both aesthetic and deflection.
> 
> As it happens, the Los Angeles Philharmonic has performed [the overture to "La gazza ladra"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLQ0jzwrk7Q) before. Five years before the events of this story.


	3. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Versailles' high profile contract leads to a long holiday and an unexpected proposal.

_The long “vacation” in Los Angeles turned into a three-month sabbatical, taking him from balmy summer days into the comfortable chill of autumn._

_Versailles scarcely noticed, pre-occupied as he was with bending Stone over every flat surface in what did turn out to be his actual home. He could afford this time off, had earned this time off, and so he took it. He took Stone on his work table, against the kitchen block, the bathroom floor, the elevated flower beds in the solarium._

_It was the solarium where he laid out the weapons designer face up on his glass coffee table, ankles and wrists restrained, burgundy ropes criss-crossing his torso in a hishi karada harness. He gagged the shorter man with his favorite Dior scarf and rode him at a pace that was just hard enough to satisfy, slow enough to protect the glass from breaking under their combined weight. All while Stone babbled at him through the silk in a strained, broken wheeze._

_“God you’re ass is fucking perfect,” he said, as soon as the gag slipped free. “Will you marry me?”_

_“Ask me that again after I've let you come,” he heaved, clamping one hand over his mouth and the other under his chin, thumb pressing across his throat. “Not yet.”_

_Throes of passion were one thing, but Stone kept asking him . Every morning for the succeeding five days. Over coffee, in the bath, cleaning and reassembling weapons on the sideboard in the living room._

_Versailles finally answered one night, nursing a gin and tonic in one hand while the pocket-sized man in his lap painted his nails on the other. #390. Red Carpet. The sensory overload of the alcohol and the acetate was heady, prime to take the blame for a lapse in judgment._

_“I’m not exactly marriage material.”_

_“And you think I am?” Stone asked, drawing the polish across his lover’s fingernails in broad red strokes._

_“You don’t even know my real name.”_

_Moreover, he didn’t know where Versailles was born, he didn't know about his diagnosis -- though the medication he took rather gave that away, he supposed -- or just how he had come to this profession. Stone’s own life was equally nebulous -- though his infectious curiosity and eagerness to absorb sensation after sensation (pleasure, pain, didn’t seem to matter) was a clue to how he had transitioned to this specific skill set._

_“What’s in a name? I knew all the shit that mattered the moment I saw you take that bitch out.”_

_That...surprised him. Not when he’d made Stone come. Not when he’d cooked shepherd's pie for him, or turned his scarf into a makeshift leash and walked him to the corner bodega for tea and biscuits. When he’d put Stone’s modified Ruger in an aging Midwestern housewife’s mouth and splattered her brains across a hideous duvet cover in an overpriced suite._

_Versailles cleared his throat, ignored the abrupt loss of gravity he felt in his chest._

_“Really?” he asked, brain signal briefly jammed as his lover blew cool air across polished fingers._

_He got part two of that story later that night as they lay in repose together on Stone’s battered chaise, a black and white film flickering on the television._

_“I watched the whole thing from the rooftop of a pesticide company on Gault Street,” he breathed against Versailles’s sternum, warm breath upsetting the light tufts of hair that remained there. “She ran and you chased. She had the easiest escape route in the world -- sliding glass door and a fire escape to the street. And you got her so scared, she fucking missed it.”_

_He replayed the hit in his mind from his perspective as Stone continued -- the technicolor and surround sound the weapons designer would have been denied from a hundred feet away with a telescopic lens._

_“You didn’t panic, you didn’t fuck up. You closed the deal without breaking a sweat or getting a hair out of place. When it was done, you buttoned up your jacket, put your cane back together and walked out like it was nothing. You made it look so fucking easy. Like… the fucking Joe DiMaggio of assassins. I couldn't get across the street fast enough."_

_Not exactly ‘saw you across a crowded room.’ However, he had lapped up far less personal compliments and done far more impulsive things than what he was being asked here. He tucked a finger under Stone's chin, turned him to face him._

_“I’m not wearing white.”_

_“Good." he smiled. “I like you in black. And it’s after Labor Day anyway.”_

_“I’m not becoming a citizen.” This, he thought, given the last few months, might be the only real sticking point._

_Stone shrugged. “A forged passport is easy enough to get. ‘Might be better than playing roulette with naturalization these days, anyway... Is any of this actually a yes?”_

_He smiled, weaving his fingers through wavy brown locks and pulling until his head tipped back futher._

_"Oui, mon chere," he replied, running a blood red fingernail across his fiance's freckled cheek. "That's a yes."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Versailles takes Valium and Sativex in this story, both of which are commonly prescribed to patients with multiple sclerosis for vertigo, pain, and mobility issues.
> 
> Acapulco referencing Joe DiMaggio is ironic, considering his personal xenophobia, and DiMaggio's family history of being persecuted as 'enemy aliens' after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

**Author's Note:**

> Versailles is wearing Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear #626 (Garage Punk) and was wearing #38 (Flirt) when he clawed his husband’s face. Widely available, chip resistant and practical. He’s also wearing a ring identical to the one Acapulco wears on his right forefinger in the film (of course their wedding bands are on their respective trigger fingers). Acapulco has a 70’s porn ‘stache, but thanks to awesome screen grabbers, we know Manfred Stone’s California driver’s license has full Charlie Day beard.


End file.
